


Background

by lokasenna (webellion)



Series: Torchwood Yoga [1]
Category: Torchwood
Genre: Multi, Yoga
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-12
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:01:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webellion/pseuds/lokasenna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the Hub came to have a personal yoga instructor</p>
            </blockquote>





	Background

**Author's Note:**

> Background for the series Torchwood Yoga

Chapter 1

It all started innocently enough - Gwen had been out with Rhys and his sister having a laugh over a couple pints and bemoaning their over-busy lives. Rhys' sister had mentioned that she had a friend who used to work “in some government office a while back” who now taught yoga and that yoga was good for coping with stress. That was all Gwen needed to start on her crusade. 

 

* * *

 

Gwen timed her pitch well, late evening after a particularly trying week with everyone tired, irritable, and sore. They had all variously draped themselves around the conference room, trying to get up the energy to go home.

“I know something that could help us,” she started off.

“Jello shots?” Owen guessed.

“No, Owen, now be quiet, I'm serious.” she continued excitedly. “We have very stressful jobs here and everyone knows that stress takes a toll on your body and your mind. We don't get enough sleep, we don't eat properly, and we get caught up in all...” She made a sweeping gesture around the Hub. “This. I think it would do us all good to learn anything we can to get in touch with and keep ourselves in good condition.”

“Assuming one starts in good condition,” Ianto said under his breath, looking pointedly at Owen. 

Toshiko snorted and giggled. “Yeah, yeah...” Owen sneered back at Ianto in response. 

Gwen plunged in, “I found someone who could come teach us yoga here at the Hub!”

She was greeted by blank stares from the rest of the team.

“She used to work for Torchwood One, but quit to become a yoga teacher, so we don't have to worry about security,” she continued on, undaunted.

Unexpectedly, Ianto burst into a bright smile. “Llian!” he said happily.

“What's that?” Tosh inquired.

“Llian,” Ianto repeated. “It's her name - it couldn't be anyone else. She left not long after I'd joined, but we worked together in the same department so we got to know each other a little. We learned that we both practiced yoga and she'd mentioned that she wanted to become a teacher. It looks like she has,” he beamed for a moment. “She was smart to get out when she did,” he finished on a more somber note. 

“You practice... yoga?” Owen blustered in disbelief. 

“I have for several years now. You don't think this unflappable grace comes naturally, do you?” Ianto smirked. Owen groaned and rolled his eyes as the girls both tittered.

“She can come here and teach classes maybe twice a week? She said she could work around our crazy schedule here. Or she can do individual sessions if you can't make it to class.” Gwen rallied, “So what do you think? I've got to come up with something for this team stress management thing Jack assigned me and I don't think any of us wants to learn how to knit.” 

“Certainly count me in,” Ianto volunteered immediately.

Tosh looked uncertain, but nodded in agreement. “I'll give it a try.”

Everyone turned to look at Owen, who was now standing leaning against the back wall, his arms folded across his chest. “Is it like those yoga shows you see on the telly and the vids?” he questioned.

“I suppose so,” Gwen assured him.

“Right, then I'm in,” Owen said with a nod of conviction and looked up to meet three very confused faces. “Wot? Those yoga chicks are hot!” he leered good-naturedly, which earned him a sock in the arm from Tosh. 

“Well that's it then,” Gwen chirped. “Now I just need to convince Jack.” She whirled around ready to head to his office and stopped dead in her tracks with a squeak of surprise.

“Convince Jack of what?” Jack smiled, raising an eyebrow.

Chapter 2

* * *

When he first met Llian, Jack had felt a mental stutter of sorts, like deja vu almost. Something about her seemed out of place, just not quite right. Nothing dangerous, just... curious. Niggling. Whatever it was, Jack was confident he'd figure it out soon enough. 

He'd run a detailed background check before allowing Llian in the Hub, of course. A significant portion of the Torchwood One files had been destroyed in the battle at Canary Wharf, and he hadn't found anything in particular about Llian beyond the basics. She'd been with them as a “behavioral analyst” for just over two years after being recruited from an unnamed government agency, most assuredly a top secret one. Her year and a half since leaving Torchwood had been gloriously, enviously normal except for one significant peculiarity: she remembered.

It was general security policy that employees were retconned if they chose to leave as she had, no exceptions. However, much to everyone's surprise, Llian had immediately recognized Ianto and greeted him warmly when Gwen made first introductions to the team. The young man had been delighted in a way Jack hadn't seen... well, ever. They seemed to have immediately rekindled their friendship where it had left off before Llian's departure from the ill-fated London branch. 

Clearly, somehow, Llian still had significant, if not full, memory of her time at Torchwood One. When Ianto had gotten over his initial shock and asked her how this was possible, she had just shrugged and commented with a conspiratorial wink, “Who ever knows how these things work?” It had been enough of an answer for Ianto, but Jack wasn't entirely satisfied.

Jack knew that sometimes retcon just didn't work – look at what had happened with Gwen. He'd planned on asking Llian more about it directly, and then the Rift monitor had gone off, sending them all scrambling. Since then, there had just been more important things to deal with. But just to be safe, he'd be keeping an eye on things. It was easy enough to arrange that the CCTV recordings of her activity at the Hub were saved where he could access and review them privately.

Just until he knew why she felt familiar.

 

Chapter 3

* * *

Jack watched from the conference room as Llian appeared through the cog door, and descended to the main Hub floor. She made her way up to Gwen and Tosh's desks to shuffle them away from work and down into the locker room to get ready for their practice. 

She did this every time she came to take them through a class, like a patient mother picking up dirty socks. Ianto, always punctual, would already be in the training room and Owen would follow shortly after the girls. Jack was always the last to show up after trying to assure himself the Hub could withstand the entire team being occupied for the next hour. 

The inexplicable sense of familiarity Jack had felt when he first met her had inevitably become explicable familiarity over the past two months Llian had been coming to the Hub regularly. In that time, he had to admit, he really could see a difference in the team. Gwen was steadier, Tosh was more confident, Owen was more agreeable, and Ianto seemed warmer. Jack was convinced that the progamme was a good idea, but he felt left out. He always felt like his time could be better spent doing something else – anything else. 

He'd skipped class once, and the hell that Gwen gave him, insisting that the whole thing had been his idea (it wasn't, it had been hers) and that he was setting a bad example by not participating fully, made attending class the definite lesser of two evils. If he was completely honest with himself, he felt uncharacteristically awkward and self-conscious in yoga class, which was not a feeling he was accustomed to. And not one he particularly enjoyed.

To make it worse, he was pretty sure Llian knew it. 

She'd never said anything, of course, but Jack thought she seemed to enjoy his unease a little bit. She kept them longer in poses that were particularly difficult for him. She paced vinyasas so that he always felt a little out of breath, inhaling and exhaling longer than he really wanted to. She tested his balance, pressing her hand against him lightly sometimes as she passed by on her way to correct Owen's alignment or make sure Toshiko didn't lock her knees. She stood behind him and watched him in the mirrored wall, ruining his concentration. She freely touched everyone in class with surprisingly intimate gestures with baffling impunity. 

She was warm, comfortable and friendly with all of the team to the point where classes now were a social event as much as anything else. It was good for them to have a reliable link to the outside, normal world, and Llian provided that link. But towards Jack, she seemed distinctly cooler. He'd thought at first it was out of respect for the chain of command, knowing how things had been run at Torchwood One, but certainly she must have figured out by now that things were run a little differently at Torchwood Three. Despite that, she remained politely distant. 

She was helping Ianto decorate his flat, she regularly went shopping with Gwen, she'd joined a cooking class with Tosh, she had even managed to drag Owen out to a film, but Jack was lucky to be able to strike up half a conversation with her. If she responded at all to his persistent flirtations before or after class, it was rarely with anything more than a disarmingly innocent smile. That possibly bothered him more than anything else. Be shocked, be offended, be delighted, but don't be apathetic. 

Jack thought he knew when he was being toyed with, but Llian never gave a hint of satisfaction if that's what she was doing. The determination to catch her in the act kept him coming to class now.


End file.
